Embrace Operational Excellence For Continued Solar Business Success

Starting a solar business often begins with a familiar story; we hear it from the hundreds of installers we work with. Perhaps you’ve worked on roofs as an installer, managed construction crews, or come from a corporate background and see the opportunity in clean energy. What becomes clear quickly is this: solar isn’t just construction, and it’s not just corporate. It’s a unique business model that blends the challenges of construction with the scale and complexity of a large enterprise. 

The industry’s up-and-down nature only amplifies its complexity. Incentives appear and disappear, tariffs shift, supply chains tighten, and policies change overnight. If there is anything we can all agree on, it’s that the solar industry is in constant motion. In the ever-shifting environment, some companies falter, while others find ways to excel. The difference isn’t chance, it’s the culture of operational excellence. 

Operational excellence isn’t just some buzzword that “Corporate Bro” on TikTok is dubbing the newest business cliche. It’s the backbone of companies that scale, stay profitable, and outlast their competitors in a volatile market. They adapt quickly, sharpen their execution, and lean into being the best at what they do. When the industry contracts, they don’t just survive; they use those moments to solidify their position. Operational excellence isn’t optional; it’s survival. 

In the following sections, we’ll break down what operational excellence really means in the solar industry and how each department can adapt the highest of standards to excel.

What is Operational Excellence?

Operational excellence won’t have just one standard definition. That’s because every business, department, and process has a different measurement for what constitutes “excellence” and how to achieve it. 

IBM follows a guiding principle for operational excellence, defined as: “an approach to business management that emphasizes continuous improvement across all aspects of the business and within all business processes by creating a culture where management and employees are invested in business outcomes and empowered to implement change”. 

Other definitions you’ll find often include the same three principles:

• Consistency
• Continuous Improvement
• Optimization

In short, operational excellence in a solar company means everyone in the organization is looking for ways to be more efficient, improve customer experiences, and deliver value to their customers. While solar businesses can have a wide range of departments, including marketing, policy, accounting, customer service, legal, and more, for the purpose of this article, we’ll zero in on the core departments of sales, operations, and service.

Let’s break down each of the core principles and how they can apply to different departments.

Consistency

Consistency is the most important principle in operational excellence because consistency builds trust. In fact, McKinsey research shows that consistency across the customer journey is more strongly correlated with customer loyalty than individual interactions, and even small gaps in consistency can erode trust at the same level as outright failure. At the end of the day, customers don’t work with people or businesses they don’t trust. In a customer’s eyes, inconsistent success has the same effect on reputation as failure. 

In the solar world, we see some of the biggest mistakes in consistency in installations and proposals. The information customers receive from sales, operations, and service must be consistent. The information provided to every customer needs to be the same, whether that’s describing net metering policies or discussing financing. 

Here are some ways each department can embrace consistency to work toward operational excellence:

Sales

• Templated Proposals – Standardizing proposals ensures that each sales conversation follows the same core messaging. Providing the same whitepapers, video guides, etc., to every client ensures consistent messaging and communication
• Daily CRM Updates – Consistent operations start from within. By ensuring diligent notes are added about every customer and interaction, sales teams avoid missed opportunities. 
• Quick Quotes – Having goals for the speed at which customers are contacted and given quotes is massively important. 80% of consumers say that speed and convenience are the most important elements of positive customer experiences.

Operations

• Standardized Checklists – One of the biggest time wasters on an install is having to go back to the shop or to a store for a missing component. Instituting a daily checklist for all materials or equipment needed prevents missed steps and wasted time. Bonus points if it’s digital and can be tracked by management. 
• Customer Communication – Solar homeowners have a ton of communication with a company during the sale, but then they won’t hear much until it’s almost install time. While a lot is happening on the back end, customers don’t hear about it. Having a consistent communication plan for homeowner updates goes a long way.
• Site Cleanup – An easy way to improve the customer experience is to have an end-of-day site cleanup checklist. Ensuring crews leave sites better than they found them creates a culture of excellence.

Service

• Expectations – This one will involve the sales team, too, but having clear expectations reiterated to the customer about how service is handled creates the same experience for everyone. Whether that’s service costs or timeline, consistent expectations are vital.
• Daily Ticket Review – Begin each day with a team review of all open tickets, including their status and next steps. Assigning clear ownership ensures nothing is missed. 
• Post-Service Touchpoints – Always following up with a customer after service to discuss what was fixed, what to expect in the future, and how to contact you if another issue arises, is a powerful way to be consistently excellent. 

Continuous Improvement

No organization is perfect, and mistakes happen. What separates the high-performing solar companies from the rest is how they respond. The best solar companies don’t just fix problems; they view challenges as an opportunity to refine processes, sharpen tools, and improve communication both internally and externally. 

According to the American Society for Quality (ASQ), companies that embed continuous improvement into their operations reduce waste, improve efficiency, and build resilience by making small, incremental changes that compound into major performance gains over time.

In the solar industry, where policies shift, technology upgrades, and customer expectations evolve, continuous improvement isn’t optional. It’s a discipline that keeps the most successful companies agile, competitive, and trusted. 

For different departments, here are some examples:

Sales

• Communication – communication with customers is at the core of sales, and salespeople should always look for improvement in internal and external communication. CRMs are very useful for tracking this, but ask how ideas or information can be communicated more clearly to all parties. 
• Customer Education – Focus on explaining how solar works, in-depth financing options, and long-term value, rather than just pushing panels. Sales teams that prioritize education are consistently the most successful. 

Operations

• Forecasting – A favorite buzzword among distributors, improving how you forecast future jobs and supply needs will help to mitigate shortages and change orders for customers. 
• Scheduling – Delays often arise from razor-thin timelines for everything from permits to inspections to installs themselves. Using a centralized database for scheduling can give timeline visibility to operations and sales teams, improving customer experience. 

Service

• Monitoring – Rather than waiting for issues to arise, proactively monitoring sites regularly and learning how to do so in a quick manner goes a long way. If your customers don’t need to call when issues arise, they won’t feel like they’ve lost out on as much energy. With a large fleet, it can be challenging to hop between apps and view everything. Solar Insure Certified Providers can utilize Daybreak to get monitoring alerts and information from SolarEdge, Enphase, Tesla, and Generac systems all in one place. 
• Documentation – Inevitably, issues will arise during service, whether it’s with manufacturers or customers. Documentation can help provide clear evidence of issues in no uncertain terms. There are even apps that allow pictures to be automatically uploaded to CRMs. 

Optimization

Optimization sounds like another corporate buzzword. But really, if you think about it, optimization is a critical component of operational excellence because, similar to continuous improvement challenges teams and organizations to evaluate the tools, resources, and processes they rely on. The difference is that optimization isn’t about incremental tweaks; it’s about stepping back, taking a broader view, and asking whether what you have is being used to its fullest potential or whether it needs to be restructured, consolidated, or eliminated altogether.

Optimization gives teams the opportunity to evaluate whether systems are being underutilized, duplicated, or misaligned with business goals. This often uncovers quick wins, like better training on existing platforms, consolidating overlapping software, or eliminating processes that no longer add value. According to Bain & Company, companies that regularly optimize their operations can reduce costs by up to 25% while also increasing agility and speed to market.

In solar, optimization could mean tightening install crew logistics so fewer hours are wasted in transit, streamlining proposal platforms so sales spend less time on admin work, or aligning customer service tools so communication is tracked in one system instead of several. By continuously removing waste and maximizing efficiency, solar companies can scale more profitably and deliver a consistently higher-quality customer experience.

In the departments, optimization looks like this:

Sales

• Smarter Lead Prioritization – Protect marketing ROI and the sales cycle by utilizing scoring models, appointment setters, and CRM automations. You can identify the highest-value leads first, reducing the wasted time of your team on unqualified prospects.
• Automated Follow-Up Cadence – Missed follow-ups are the primary reason sales teams waste leads. Building automated email/SMS cadences ensures every prospect hears from you quickly and consistently, boosting trust and closing more deals without adding headcount.
• Value-Focused Proposals – Upgrade proposals to highlight homeowner ROI, warranties, and reliability. A clean, tech-driven proposal platform builds credibility, improves close rates, and gives leadership better visibility into sales performance.

Operations

• End-to-End Workflow Integration– Connect the sales CRM, project management, and inventory systems into one streamlined workflow. Eliminating manual handoffs reduces errors, accelerates installs, and improves forecasting accuracy for leadership. 
• Predictive Scheduling Tools– Many organizations have implemented scheduling platforms to optimize crew routes, balance workloads, and anticipate bottlenecks before they happen. By minimizing downtime and cutting fuel and labor waste, these tools expand install capacity and throughput—without increasing headcount or overhead.
• Team Training – An often overlooked part of optimization is good old-fashioned training. Looking at the field teams and determining if more training is needed can be shockingly helpful for on-site efficiency. Many manufacturers will offer field team training and best practice sessions. 

Service

• Remote Diagnostics – Utilizing monitoring platforms for remote diagnostics, when possible, saves time and money by eliminating the need to visit the site immediately. Many manufacturers have error codes that immediately trigger an RMA, so remotely assessing the system beforehand is supremely helpful. Daybreak offers Certified Providers a place to monitor their whole fleet.
• Customer Self-Help Tools – To work properly, this feature requires thorough implementation. However, having an extensive website resource library with common troubleshooting options can help customers resolve simple problems on their own. A good way to stay in touch with customers is to periodically send out newly published guides relevant to their system as a “just in case” measure.
• Closed-Loop Feedback – Automate post-service surveys and tie results back into training and process improvements. For leadership, this is real-time quality control; for customers, it shows you’re listening and acting on their feedback.

Operational Excellence Leading into The Future

Sitting down with your team to define what “excellence” looks like for each role isn’t just a management exercise. It’s one of the most powerful levers for building a resilient, thriving business. The strategies above are just a few of the many ways solar teams can embrace operational excellence and make their businesses more efficient and sustainable. These practices ensure that even in times of a down market, they can maintain quality and customer experience. 

With the future of the solar market uncertain, teams that strive for excellence, continually improve, and adapt will be the ones to overcome.

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